In You should write your speeches and presentations, Frank Adamo tells us that we should write out our speeches so that we can refine, massage, and condense them. He quotes David Brooks, the 1990 World Champion of Public Speaking:
It is absolutely necessary to write a speech and refine the speech as many times as necessary.
It is important to have a speech written down so that you CAN edit it. This does not mean that you have to write it first. To keep your speech conversational, many experts suggest that you use a voice recorder to capture the speech and then transcribe it.
I agree with this advice when it relates to a 7:30 Toastmasters contest speech. Every second counts. When it comes to an hour long speech, I think being genuine and conversational is much more important than culling a few words here and there.
Packing more into a speech may not be what the audience really needs. They may need to feel a connection with a real human being who isn’t concentrating on giving a highly optimzed speech.
My recommendation is to record your speech. Transcribe your speech. Then, take key areas of that speech and edit those. Internalize, but don’t memorize. Don’t edit the whole thing – unless it is for the World Championship of Public Speaking contest. Even if it is for the contest, determine if highly edited speech is your style.
Posted under Toastmasters
This post was written by john on April 11, 2009
